For I am Hellbound
by asophlady101a
Summary: Life is more precious once you realize it's gone. Luckily for Rue, she has a second chance, but at a price. Rue is alone, she has scaly blue skin, a strange power, and is forced to struggle with being a woman in a time where women are not equal. Adapting to her second life, Rue slowly becomes determined to change the world at any cost. SI/OC
1. The Life and Death

**NOTE: I do not own x-men or any of their characters. This plot is simply a fanfic and not for profit. **

**Any comments, questions, or concerns please leave a review in the box below. Flames will be ignored as I write for my own entertainment not for other's sake, but constructive criticism will be welcome at any time. **

**That being said, Thank you and have a happy reading.**

**.**

**.**

**.**

**_"Pure silence is always the loudest noise" _**

I didn't know how I ended up this way.

But in my experience, I've learned to just roll with the punches and not question the strange surprises life pulls on us.

To sum it all up, I was a quiet kid. I never really had quite fit in, I had broad shoulders for a girl, a flat nose, and long knotted, hair that often fell in greasy ringlets in the humidity. In fact, before my 'death' the only thing I really considered beautiful about me was my big blue eyes that were dark _azul_ orbs. Other than that, I never really socialized with my peers. I wasn't really interested in boy bands, or make up like the other girls, and I had never faithfully followed Netflix or and other kind of TV shows. I had pitiful knowledge about pop culture because it simply was not interesting to me, and it made it difficult for me to connect to kids my age. But to the few friends I did had, were often older, and I cherished them greatly.

I was close to my parents, but distant from my siblings who had graduated high school and were out of the house before I was even out of elementary school. Other than that there was nothing really abnormal about me other than the fact I was very ambitious. I wanted a job in the future, a high paying career. That, and the fact I unfortunately had expensive hobbies I had to help my parents pay for.

I loved to swim, I had a black belt in _Krav Maga_, I loved fencing, piano, and scuba diving. I was concentrated on reading, and getting good grades. I went to good college in upstate New York to get a degree in mechanical and chemical engineering in college.

But I never got to finish that degree.

I was robbed of that experience.

I was coming home for Christmas when it happened. I was hit by a truck in an intersection (he had passed through a red light when it happened) and I was crushed.

I remember mostly the fear, the crushing fear of my little rusty car being flipped over and over to the pavement and off the road. I remember hazy pain, and then a welcoming darkness.

In the end I was just like a snowflake in the drift, one in a thousand humans struggling in our world. I faded into the world like a blank canvas forever forgotten. I-was nothing. I had not made a name for myself, and I had few who would mourn.

And I was oddly okay at that.

That did not mean I did not miss being alive. I missed the was food tasted on my tongue, the way water ran over my back in the shower, the littlest, most tiny insignificant things we never really noticed from day to day life. I wished I could do it again. I wished I had friends and I wished I had been closer to people rather than being so concentrated on my career. But overall I was satisfied, I had a lucky life. I could have had it much worse. I wished the best to my friends and family and said goodbye to the life I lived.

My life from before didn't really matter, not for this story. But neither I would I ever fully forget about it either. All I could do was wish my parents and friends well and move on. What else could I do? Cry, sob, scream about how unfair life was for robbing me? Why? What good would that do for anyone? How would that help me? No, I would mourn. But that best way to honor my old life was a promise never to forget, and to hold my precious people close to my heart.

That's where my story really begins.

My name is Anna-Rue Blackthorne and I died in the snow.

.

Then I was reborn in it.


	2. Chapter 2 & 3

Chapter One:

_"A little fire can stir the blood in men that fight entire wars"_

_._

_._

_._

The first thing I noticed upon my awakening was that I was cold. The second that registered was that it was dark. The third was that I was so cold I could not feel parts of my body. _Perhaps I'm in shock_ I thought disconnected from reality.

I blinked my eyes heavily, each blink feeling like a hundred pounds of struggling pressure. At first I thought I must be at the scene of the crime maybe I hadn't died. Rather, I had passed out and was somehow still alive, pined beneath the scraps of metal and plastic in my car.

But I was not. In fact I had free range of movement, and moving made me feel strange. Like my limbs were too short. Like I was missing something, for one morbid moment I thought I had figured I was now limbless and I just could not feel the pain.

I do not know how long I lay there starring up unseeing at the clear night sky. But eventually I started to wriggle, I had all ten toes and fingers. I ran my hands all over my body, I felt strange, I felt strange bumps and contours that I had not had earlier. In fact, I felt a bit like being stuffed in a sardine can, I felt too big for my body. When I finally pulled together the strength I had to stand I realized I somehow shrunk, and I was naked.

Was I experimented on? Was I sold in some odd human trafficking? Why was I small and naked? What memories was I missing?

It was a surreal experience, like it belonged in a movie somewhere.

_Did they steal my car?_ I wondered fuzzily and not too sanely in the moment. Looking back, there should have been a hundred other things that I should have been thinking about right then.

I shifted and stood up, flexing my toes and fingers, but shielding most of my body in to keep it from the bitter wind. Looking back it seems a bit silly. But nothing could have come to a more severe shock when I looked down at my tiny dark hand.

_Yes_.

My hand was dark, as in a different skin color. I blinked, did I have hypothermia? Or…had I…dare say it, been reincarnated?

How else was I supposed to describe me being in a vastly different body with different skin tones without coming up with ridiculous theories?

The most important thing: _I was alive. And therefore, I could survive. _

After that all I registered was survival instincts. I needed to get moving-or else risk freezing to death. _Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving. If I stopped I would die._

The road I followed seemed to stretch forever-but I didn't notice-I was hypnotized by the way my feet seemed to fall upon the snow. It was blue in the night-it was strange-it was exotic. I was entranced, trying to ignore the cold seeping into my bones. I tried running, but the most I could put out was a lopsided stagger. I finally reached the point where I saw some lights of a village.

After reaching civilization I had enough sense to scrambled next to a heater, rather than walk inside. After all, I had no idea where I was, and I wanted to collect information before I went out into the public. I must've stayed there for hours, underneath a giant wooden porch slowly growing warm from the steam. People walked above me, chatting and talking while I listened. Sometimes I'd just fade out into unconsciousness and my vision would slip and spin into black bliss. All I knew that when I was awoke fully aware-it was day and the snow had melted a tiny bit creating large puddles of water on the streets. People were all about chatting talking, and I observed. Even though I was ravenous.

I didn't dare go out however, there were lots of people around me that I didn't know and my first instinct was to hide. I was in an unknown surrounding with strangely dressed people and cars. It was like taking a step back in time, where people spoke in different accents with different speech patterns. It was alien and unusual and I didn't like the conclusions it led me too. So I didn't want to risk being caught. So with my heart in my throat I waited till dusk ignoring the painful hunger in my stomach out of fear.

It was that night I first discovered my simultaneous gift and curse.

"Mary!" A male voice called from nearby. I gasped and hugged my body to a corner of an alley way, it was dark, but I did not want to risk chances "Come on honey, I'm sorry!" A man yelled at a woman making a fixed pace away from him. She was a beautiful woman wrapped head to toe in a white fur coat, a cigarette clamped tightly between her lips pulled down into a frown, and tears were in her eyes. "Don't talk to me John, not after what you did!" She yelled in a strange accent, "I saw you all over that two-cent hoe!"

"It's not what it look like sugar!" John, the man pleaded.

I was struck at that moment how insignificant I was. I was an outsider looking in. Not just in the middle of a dramatic break up, but in this whole situation in general. I just wanted to go home, to curl up in my warm bed and forget this whole nightmare. I wished to be this woman, breaking up with her boyfriend, not worrying about meals and strange body snatchers. The next thing I _felt_ was this _urge_ to be her. Like I could _be_ her-like I could just blend into the borders of her life.

The next thing I knew-I was much taller, skinner, and fairer skinned. I looked down staring into a puddle of a mirror image of the woman in a warm coat, a cigarette dangling between lips formed in a red 'O'. The light from the bar flickered and shifted, the people long forgotten as I touched my face in awe. I prodded at it-everything-down to her perfectly slim nose- to her warm, comfy clothes and hard high heels-it was all a perfect mimicry down to her styled hair. I blinked. I didn't want to stay like this forever! I felt, rather than saw myself shrink.

I was a little girl, a child really.

A blue-skinned little girl with piercing yellow eyes like fireflies in the dark, and fiery red hair like a hot fire.

At that point I was more fascinated, dazed rather, than scared. I could not think of anything logically explaining this phenomenon. I felt like an alien (a freak) my mind echoed. But I quickly shook it off.

It didn't really matter what I looked like if I could switch identities in a moment.

When I regained some of my bearings I started to mimic other people and steal. I stole lots of things back then. I stole blankets, wallets, pillows, tools, food, water, soda, books, bank account numbers, and jewelry. I stole anything I could get my blue hands on, and then I stole some more. I gathered that I was in a completely different time period where store cameras were somewhat of a novelty. It was easy shifting, using a stranger's voice to steal and threaten people into giving up their belongings.

I never killed, though occasionally I got into skirmishes. I never stole from the obviously poor. I stole from those who could afford to be stolen from. The ones wrapped in fur lined coats with diamonds dripping from their pockets. There was poor security, because I had somehow miraculously went decades back in time. Into my parents childhood, I think. There was no technology like I was used to, all I needed was a shady corner to hide my face and I'd go out on a stealing spree.

Stealing was a different way of life than I had ever known. Facing the choice of stealing or starvation the choice was pretty easy. But soon I began to crave a life. A life outside of crime. I crave companionship, a real friend, a parent. In these times I reminiscenced, I stole, and I studied.

I stole books and magazines to catch me up on education. I made further plans of enrolling in schools. I needed an education in this life. I needed it desperately, especially as World War Two was just beginning to wage.

I tried to look up my grandparents, but I couldn't find any mention of them in Texas. I knew my grandfather had been a Doctor during the Second War and my grandmother had been a nurse. But there was no mention of them, and I had not memorized their address from the future.

Not like I could hunt them down and say "Hey, I'm your granddaughter from the future, can you take me in and feed me cause I'm lost and alone?" Yeah, right. No insane person would believe me, much less believe me when I had blue skin and yellow eyes.

It amazed and frightened me every time I looked in the mirror. I liked to pretend that I was a blue dragon in this life. That all I had left to do was spread my wings and fly away. As childish as it sounded, it made me feel less like a freak and more like a courageous warrior. I needed a little fantasy in the dark world that formed around me and threatened to strangle me.

I lived in constant fear. Fear that I would be discovered, for both my crimes and my skin. I was born just at the beginning of the Civil Rights movement (1955-1968), born in the tail end Woman's Suffrage movement (1840's-1920's.) People feared and hated what was different here. I was that difference. I was a woman, which already oppressed in this population today. Where woman were judged on beauty over brains. This was a time where the segregation of whites and colored people thrived. Black or white skinned? Those colors had nothing on the dark blue hue of mine.

I was ashamed and scared. Yet constantly curious. I was thankful for my gift of shapeshifting. It gave me an edge I could not do without. I was thankful that I was healthy. That I was warm, and that I had enough sense in my brain to build myself a small shack far in the outskirts of the town I situated myself with.

The little burrow (as I fondly nicknamed it) did what it was built for. It kept the bad weather out, and the heat in. It was one room about ten feet it diameter, with a tub (that had been in a garbage dump) a few buckets, and a small springy mattress that was raised a few inches across the ground. It was a wooden shack, with wooden floors and walls. The walls were covered in quilts, and insulation to keep the heat from escaping. On the floor was a rug with patches in it, which underneath lay a secret hole in which I stored all my stolen money and food. The rest of my free time I built shelves of which I stored my books. In the corner was my desk, which about it held a lantern of which I used candles and a flashlight for light. I kept dried food in the cabin, shoved into all corners. For perishables I ate until I had to throw it out. To relieve myself, I often either went into public facilities as men or women or went out into the woods. Finally, the last feature of the shack was a giant mirror that encompassed my body. I used this to experiment with my power.

After all my needs were met I planned and schemed. Beyond my needs, what could I get to help me?

I needed an identity. A couple actually. I needed an identity to sell jewels on the black market. I needed an identity to be of legal age, a cripple preferably who would not get drafted into the war. Someone with a bad medical history. Finally, I needed an identity of my physical age. Somehow, I needed to manage and work all three of them.

Next time I was in the village, I stole what information I had on identities and I stole a journal.

I researched into forging. And got a few practice ones until I was good at it. You see, birth certificates had certain stamps on them and I had to steal many identities to copy them exactly.

All of this took around a year, in between I stole food and watched the nearby school kids to blend in with the kids my age. I studied people in depth, how to converse, to seduce, to coerce a stranger into doing something to twist it to my benefit. I copied accents flawlessly, I used manners and pasted together physical features to create my own. Finally, I planted three different identities all at different times. I kept a journal to record these activities.

First, was a druggie. His name was John Meyer. He had grown up in Boston. Walked with a drunken swagger. He was a thief though, and a newspaper seller. At night he'd slip to a pawn shop and sell his goods. He came at random times, and often with good heists.

Second, was an Inventor. Dr. Albus Martin, mechanical and chemical engineer. He especially was good at creating weapons, newer and faster for the war. But he was often ill, he had skin cancer, and he had a prosthetic leg and a missing eye (of which he tied a white sash around.) He also lost his wife to a factory accident, it was common for them to happen. He was left with a nine year old daughter who he home schooled. He had around an estimated decade to live and was desperate for money to support his daughters schooling.

Thirdly, there was Anna-Rue Martin. A nine year old home-schooled genius. An ambitious and out-going girl who wasn't afraid to speak her mind and a little rough around the edges. She would outclass all of her peers, and be bullied for it (I expected it because people always singled out who was different and I was. I wasn't going to hide it.) Martin would take out the childish side of me.

John Meyer would only live until Dr. Albus Martin got his sick business up and going selling patents. Then once Rue hit majority, Dr. Albus Martin would die after, leaving thousands of dollars to his little girl.

This was my plan. It was rough around the edges. But everything checked out. I doubled, tripled checked over and over trying to find a flaw before I put the whole thing into motion. In something failed I could always "kill" off my people and start again in a different town.

I didn't really connect who I was then. I didn't connect at who or where I was to 'be' until many months later after much pondering and testing my personas.

By then, I was too busy to really care.

My name is Rue.

I vow I will survive.

Chapter 2:

"Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me."

.

.

.

In another world, a blue-skinned girl would had woken up in the snowy field. She would not have been Anna-Rue Blackthorne. In another world, it would have been Raven Darkholme.

Raven, lost and confused would have picked the opposite direction to travel. She would have travelled away from the city behind her and into the rural pastures. She stole off farms to survive, being a nomad and using her power to trick people into giving her food.

She would have eventually come upon Xavier mansion, where she would be caught stealing food from the kitchens and would befriend a lonely telepath named Charles Xavier. She would grow up his younger sister, not quite confident in the world that oppressed mutants, women, and colored people. She would meet Erik Lehnsherr when he was pulled by her brother out of the ocean and meet other mutants and save the world from a nuclear winter. She would chose to follow Magneto in protecting mutants from humans, and agree with his actions of presiding over humanity. She would leave her brother behind paralyzed on a beach, as she birthed a new persona: Mystique. She would become a deadly terrorist, a mutant activist, a spy. She would fight many battles and become cold and bitter. Raven would eventually be abandoned by the man she fought under, after shot down filled with the cure meant for Magneto. She'd live the rest of her life in prison for her crimes, and die miserable. The world would go on til it was taken over by Sentinels, using Raven's DNA to wipe out all mutants across the globe. Eventually, Logan aka Wolverine, would attempt a jaunt through time to once again change the timeline.

But it did not matter because this future did not exist anymore.

Oh, both timelines would have similarities, but the original was long gone.

In its place was me.

.

.

.

Years trickled past.

I bought a house once I realized I needed post to get mail. I bought a little place out in the middle of nowhere (there is a trend with this). I made my "father" persona a reclusive, dying inventor who sent his daughter out alone for school and errands. The Inventor made few public appearances, rather he did everything by mail. He made bullet proof vests, bullets, different guns. The Inventor even had "invented" disposable pads for ladies under the guise of my "daughter" going through the pains of becoming a woman. (I knew when I hit puberty I was not going to contemporary washable pads. I was not risking infection or rash, thank you very much.) The Inventor created ceramic pots and pans that were easy to cook with, he created portable filter for water. Which were like large straws you could stick in any dirty stream or puddle (provided it was fresh water) and would filter out bacteria. The Inventor also hired people of color to work in a building he bought in the center of town, he paid them well and offered health care benefits. This made him very popular with the poor in New York, his new company, _Indigo Inc_, became increasingly popular as it near the end of the war. Women and men of both color and Caucasian worked together under one man in the work place. They set aside their differences and held respect for a sickly man they hardly ever saw.

It was amazing what one could get away with the right planning.

I used my multiple identities to steal, to lie, and to win in business. I found I even had a knack for wagering and making deals. (I did not expand to big business because I did not plan on keeping the company forever. I knew the end of the war was coming, and I would not be bullied into losing my war factories after it.)

As little-girl Rue, I skipped entire grades until I was a nine year old amongst fourteen year olds. It was really simple because I had learned all of the material and more by this age in my first life. The only difficulty I had was learning the systems of books, I had no internet to go on. All I had were books and references in the library. I placed myself ahead though to garner more attention. If I gathered enough quickly, the harder it would be for people to stomp me out.

I often used my "little girl" persona to visit my own factories in which my "Daddy" worked. I used my overall childishness and polite ladylike manners to win the workers over.

As a double, I also used it to spy on my workers. If anyone was stealing, or if anyone was hurt, or honestly complaining about working conditions I would slip something to my father and something would change.

I tried to give my workers the best health benefits I could offer. It was a small price in my multitude of sins and stolen from. I paid over the minimum wage and I paid full health benefits, two things which drew blue collar workers to me like flies in that time period where such a thing was unheard of. I made sure they worked for it all though, I paid them to keep loyal to me because once I shed my "Inventor" persona, me, as a young woman would take over the company. Which is why I spent my second childhood cultivating friendships with the workers in the factories and working alongside them instead of cultivating friendships with children my age.

At school, I had grown a voice that could not be ignored.

I was a girl and I clearly beat every single boy who was supposedly "smarter" in my grade with my "ingenius". I wasn't interested in any kind of doll, play, or love interest. I was polite, and seemingly turning a blind eye to the poisonous stares and whispers. Which had the side effect of making me seem dignified and confident (this was unplanned, but welcomed. I was really was just practicing control over my explosive temper.)

I often had to appeal to my "father" and the principle of the school because I felt as if I was graded unfairly (I was) I had checked with my peers papers to compare notes and essays. I had written papers far beyond those of my years. The teachers did not like that I was changing the name of the game. They did not like that I was different. I even had to appeal to the Board of Governors for my grades on occasion.

Once they found out my "Father" had money, they were on me like a pack of wolves. Money truly paved the way with gold (Of course, I slowly stole it all back from the greedy little suckers in the guise of extra tax fees, heh.)

On another hand, I actually kept my other thief persona for the stolen cash. I fed it into two accounts which both held Rue (it was all me anyway) as their inheritor. All of my money were in small amounts in different banks, this was to protect myself in the event of the stock market crash. I invested in gold and silver. Soon, I went out on the stock market and invested in different upcoming technology I recognized. I invested in computer companies, car companies, in airplanes and medicine. Soon, I collected enough money from the people and surrounding cities to be quite well off. I could live the rest of my life comfortably on my "inheritance."

When I graduated the nearby high school, years ahead of my other peers, I applied for Harvard, Oxford, MIT, RPI, Cornell. I expected that getting into colleges as a woman would be hard. But I refused to change my name or gender for this. I would make a name for myself on my merits. At this time colleges were just starting to offer women degrees in a "man's" field.

I didn't get into Harvard or MIT or Cornell.

However, I did get into Oxford, and RPI after a hefty "donation" for consideration from my "father".

I decided to go to Oxford, which had a better reputation (though I was paying out of my nose for it) for a PhD in psychology and law. I wanted to study criminal law this time, as chemical engineering and mechanical engineering could be closely navigated. I would bridge the gaps between science and the justice system. Hopefully, this would help me stick under the radar and suit my new mutation. Knowing international law would be greatly beneficial when going around the world. Studying how to get inside peoples heads was a bonus made for my mutation.

The third thing I would study was business and language, but that would wait until after my PhD. After all, school does not have to end after college.

I decided to "study" those on my "own" and test out of all the classes I could easily pass in. Testing out eventually became huge with saving money in time, I passed a with a Bachelors in mechanical and chemical engineering with ease before I focused my time on building up my education for the PhD I wished to complete at Oxford.

Now PhD's actually were a waste of money in my opinion. It was almost all reputation and title only. It was two years of education of what a lifetime of field work would cost you. But it came with irrefutable proof you were the best of the best and I wanted that proof.

I could not help but notice I was much more ambitious with this life this time around then my first.

.

.

.

So, I packed my "bags" from my trip, applied for a (fake) passport (security was nothing like it was after 9/11 in modern day times. A little adjusting the forged work slipped by easy.)

I went to study at Oxford when I was seventeen, by that time I had spent the year reviewing my engineering degrees, and testing out of the easy "basket courses" (electives like poetry, for instance) to build up my credits in the college.

I was up to my eyeballs in my studies, and I was dealing with ugly, blatant sexism.

If I could count the amount of lewd prepositions, comments, and dismissals I would lose track daily. People tried to keep me out of a "man's" activities. I was questioned for my ambitions when apparently all I apparently needed was a man at home. _This was not an option for me_. There would be no MRS. Degree in this life, in this body. I had accepted my abstinence with a difficult stance when people expected me to become a mother, even when I was deep in the field. People still expected that someone would come along and tie me down.

It was frustrating.

It made me want to scream, cry, and punch someone.

It was hard no to pull out the old _Krav Maga_ lessons I had painstaking learned in my past life and prepared for this one.

_Krav Maga_ was an Israel Martial Art, it was considered one of the best in the world in modern day times and it could be adjusted and used for everyone.

It was all about brutal "survival" techniques, it taught you to first defend yourself-and if a person persisted to cause you serious harm-it taught you to kill. My sensei often talked about how he would go all around the world learning and teaching people how to fight. My sensei also was missing three of his fingers on his right hand, which he said he lost when he was a young man in college. He said that getting mugged when he was a kid changed his perspective and created a wish to protect himself. Learning _Krav Maga _changed his life, and he wished to have it change ours too.

Learning a martial art did wonders for my confidence in the past life and it did the same in this one. I could walk with my head held higher knowing that I could protect myself in my own merits rather than fearing attack. That meant everything for me. I was _independent_. I could stand on my own two feet and know I had a better chance at winning then I did without the training.

Being in a woman in this time, one studying science (the mind), I gained a lot of jealousy and anger. I was not even of voting age and I was studying with kids years much older than I.

I was glad I had cheated and graduated far beyond my class, it gave me an edge, and create an unapproachable edge which protected me from the worst of the scorn I would have had otherwise.

Because I had promoted myself a "genius" (though I was not) I had gained a reputation no one could stamp out. Added to the fact everyone underestimated me as a woman, I got away with a lot.

That to say I did not have a few scares. Some men tried to attack me, specifically once I was off campus. I had men try to force themselves on me in back alleys and it was really in those moments I was absolutely content in the knowledge I could protect myself.

Though it also made me avoid stepping off campus. I did not welcome being ambushed, it made me wary. But I liked to think that in a twisted way, it also made me stronger.

I had no friends in the university.

Oh, I had people suck up to me. Hoping to either get into my pants or ruin me, but I never let them close for that precise reason.

Even the few young women and girls on campus shied away from me and did not want to touch me. I was that much of an outcast because I was forceful in my debates and arguments. I gained a reputation of being absolutely merciless and unladylike because of my arguments.

I spiraled into a depression. My goals, my pride, my ambition was what fed me to keep going.

I could have thrown a temper tantrum, I could have been rude and impolite. I could have told the boys (for they were not men) who tried to touch my buttocks or breasts off. But no. I kept my head down and _studied_ because that was what I was here to do. I was here for the education. That was it, then I would be gone.

I was constantly surrounded by people who did not want me there. They constantly spat at me, criticized me. I had men force themselves on me in public-and I could never even slap them because I would be kicked out of school for "violence on no grounds". All I could do was ignore every body, shut myself up, and work hard.

Because of the collective shunning I faced, I never went to college parties. Why should I suffer the same hatred there from my peers as I did in the lecture hall? No, I pour myself into hobbies like exercise when I needed a break from my studies. I bought a bottle of wine when I needed to get tipsy. Otherwise, I was constantly forming and shaping my debates. Studying law and cultures all over the world and what made them tick.

I think in the end it was that collective shunning that propelled me into getting good grades. By the time I got my masters my teachers had admitted that I had good work ethic and solid arguments. My pyche teachers were impressed with the theories and papers I wrote up and I graduated with a master in all smiles.

But I saved my tears, my grief, for the private dorm I had.

I had a private dorm on campus because I paid specifically for it. You see, with my mutation, it reverted in my sleep. I always turned blue again, which was always nerve wracking because I thought someone would walk in a discover me. I eventually made a make shift lock which I wrapped around the door so I would not be surprised if someone burst in for whatever reason.

The lock also came in handy for hazing, something which I did not expect.

I had women in my dorm trying to bust my door down to bust up my things.

Now, one would think, that women would all unite in the face of blatant sexism. But that was not true when you were considered a child-genius and many years younger than them. They wished to treat me as some sort of cute pet, but when I refused those standards, I was shunned.

It was simply a matter of human pride. These girls had been considered number one in their fields their entire lives and did not take kindly to someone much younger doing so. That being said, I knew there were people who were kind, but they often avoided me because of my "merciless bitch" reputation. It was all a double edge sword when I demanded the same treatment they give to men to women. They judged me, but they criticized me much more than had I gone another route.

So, I wound up avoiding everybody but my professors. Some of which I realized were kind, others not so much.

Occasionally, I would meet someone kind and polite (at least to my face) and we would, sometimes miraculously, have a conversation. But it was never anything beyond school work and "How are you's?"

No one wished to get close to the social pariahs.

It was in my private haven when I mourned for the life I had left behind, in my down time I drew sketches of their faces to try to preserve them in my memory. But I knew I was forgetting pieces of them, like a freckle here, a sun spot there. I could not recall those details. I was left with incomplete pictures and that saddened me.

That and I battled the fact I literally looked like a freak that waltzed out of the circus. Before I had worried about things like my greasy hair and the little black heads that dotted my flat nose. This body was free of those blemishes, of fat, but in its place was blue scales and brightly colored hair. Every day I returned back to my dorm I shifted back into my blue form in all its likeness.

I sometimes thought it was quite like a blue dragon, or a blue serpent. But that romanticized my situation.

I had my career and nothing else.

I had no one who would want me like this. I had no future husband who would bed me in this body, no kids, or anything. That kind of life was not an option.

It was this reason, and my fear of fading into obscurity which drove me to heights I had never reached before. It drove me to steal, lie, and work my ass off to create a name for myself. I was no longer that innocent college kid that died in the snow, I was Anna-Rue Martin, self-made child-genius, outcast, liar, and thief. I did what I had to survive, and then I drove myself to new heights.

In a twisted way I was proud of myself.

But it did not help that everything I crafted around me was a filthy lie.

I had never worked a day in my life. I had stolen all my money.

I never had a real father, or any family support in this life.

My identity was a lie, and I might have accidentally stolen the life of a little girl to be here.

My skin was even a lie!

It hurt, some days it felt like I was shoving an iron poker through my chest, when others it felt like I was walking through sludge that was dragging me down. I was tired of keeping my lies straight, and when I noticed I was tired I tried to distract myself from depression.

I invested myself in my old hobbies when I was not studying. I retaught myself how to swim, I made a daily routine in the morning to keep up my Martial Art, I picked up piano again. I did not go near scuba diving, I simply did not trust today's faulty technology.

I also invested myself in learning different languages. In my past life I had only mastered Spanish, but I had taken a little French, Chinese, and Latin. I loosely picked those up again, along with German and Arabic. I read books about different cultures I wished to travel to, I absorbed information that I hadn't known before.

I eventually got my Masters at Oxford, for psychology and international law.

Then I surprised everyone in declaring I would get a PhD there in psychology, and I would pick up my Bachelor's degrees and bring them to masters in my old engineering courses.

I was shuffled from a class of a couple hundred into a class of less than fifty and it was around that time I would meet my first real friend in this life.

.

.

.

Before I get ahead of myself, I need to lay out a few things. At the time I had long known I was a well known "comic-book character" except, I was not a comic book character because they are one dimensional and I can easily _bleed_ and die. Though I have the powers and face of a character does not mean I _am_ them, or that I need to make the same decisions. I was responsible for my actions, and no one else. There were real consequences if I was caught.

It why I honed my concentration and multi-tasking. I noticed the better concentration I had the longer I could hold forms and I could multitask which came in help when I was surprised by something I automatically did not lost all control over my "human" form I took.

I had pulled out of the crevice in my head that I was "Mystique" from X-men.

I had realized it when I turned Sixteen back in the States. I had woken up and looked in the mirror stark naked and connected the dots to blue skin/ red hair.

Needless to say I skipped that day of school.

My world had been shaken, I was in a comic book. _Like some Sci-Fi wonder._

I was in the body of Raven Darkholme, aka Mystique. Aka Mutant Terrorist.

I had never read the comics. I had seen pictures of them of course, but I had only watched the movies with a guy I had dated in my past life. I was never too crazy on media or movies or any of that. But I had seen all the x-men and had correlated it in a rough time line in my head.

It was strange I had heard the "multi-verse" theory, of thousands of worlds born if someone remotely sneezes. Of parallel dimensions next to us and Sci-Fi movies had described and opened impossible opportunities.

Of course, I could be in any "verse" I could be in the comics, the TV show or the movies or somewhere else entirely. I could have even been some escaped lab experiment.

But it was strange to think that I had literally stolen the life of a girl I knew in a fictional book. Before I fancied the idea of reincarnation, of a severe happening to the girls body I was in that awakened-our- memories and somehow suppressed the childhood and infantile years of this one.

But now I had to question, had I somehow stole the life of this little girl? Was I a murderer because of it?

I pondered this until I realized _I had no control_. I had no control whether I was here or not, I just was. I just existed. I could not change or blame myself for this fact because I did not do it and therefore, I cannot be held justifiable for it. Had Raven-Mystique-whatever had died, I sincerely wished her soul was in a good place.

It was all I could do in that situation.

I had no control over the situation, why should I feel guilt? Was it eerie that I was now a comic book character? Yes, it was. But I did not know that for a fact, and I would not let it ruin the path I had chosen.

I still had lingering guilt over the situation though, so I tried to fashion myself differently from Mystique. The Mystique I had known had walked around naked, confident in her blue skin, and I wanted that confidence-but it did not mean I had to waltz around naked. I chose modest outfits that matched both my pale skin tone and my blue. I used white, light greys, striped shirts, black pants, dark reds, blacks, and light turquoise for clothes.

The Mystique I had known also had short, slicked back hair. In turn, I let my grow long and free down my back. This further separated me from women who cut their hair in short bobs. I did not really care for fashion, and let myself use colors close to my natural in my "human" form. In my "human" form I had bright red hair and warm brown eyes that had hints of yellow in them. It was bright and loud, which opposed my quiet personality but suited my goals in standing out. I kept my bone structure and normal height. I did not alter my breasts, my butt, my legs, or stomach, though I sometimes wished to alter them so I was thinner. Once in a while that peer pressure got to me and I would look in the mirror and wonder what I would look like with make up or short hair or a thinner stomach. I wondered what would happen to me if I did just…give up, get married, live a lie. Could I even find someone who would take me in for my skin?

Then I realized that even if I did not, I could not rely on anyone anyway. I did not have the luxury. I could not depend on the fact someone would pity me and take me in skin and all. After all, I saw every day diners posting signs saying "No Dogs, No Negros." I could not trust anyone but myself and what I made for myself.

I had nothing substantial to rely on, and I was truly alone. I had no family, no friends, no life outside of a lie. All I literally had was my career, this future I was set upon making for myself because I was scared.

I was sacred of dying again, alone, unaccomplished. I did not want to be another snowflake in a sea of snow drifts. I wanted to be a storm, I wanted to be important, worshipped, cherished, and remembered. I wanted to be the stuff of legends.

It was childish.

It was true.

I was afraid of dying and being forgotten.

But I would carve a name for myself in the world, and in so doing, snatch a little immortality for myself.

.

.

.

_(Back then I was arrogant and ambitious. I figured that because I had my power nothing could affect my little bubble. I could survive, continue to live a lie and do the things I wished to do.)_

_(I thought that the only thing I would claim responsible for was my kleptomaniac spree. But I underestimated one thing: human fear. It came back to bite me years later. But for now I lived a lie believing that the world just needed to open its eyes a little and see men and women and people of different colors were all equal.)_

_(I did not realize how naive I was.)_

_(The world would unite against mutants, and I would be caught in the middle of wanting to be a mutant and blending in to my human counterparts.)_

_(I would be forced to one side or the other, no matter how I longed for peace.)_

_(I am Anna-Rue. I will survive.)_

.

.

.

**So that is all of my revisions! I hope you like my new (slightly-dark) OC. I edited to the best of my ability, but I would appreciate a beta with attention to grammar. **

**So, I watch DOFP and it was great and that was what inspired me to take this up again. **

**Ha, so I wanted to create a Raven that was serious and driven as a teenager. But I plan the X men First Class will start soon, in like two to three chapters. **

**Anyway, thank you, if you have any comments, questions, or concerns please leave a message below and have a nice day!**

**-Orange Ink**

_**Sneak Peek: **_

_**"There was a new boy on scene, a couple years below me studying genetics. He pretty much had everybody wrapped around his finger. He popular, kind, funny, a ladies man, and most importantly, I recognized his name. He was an telepath. I avoided him. **_

_**Of course, I should have realized that nothing is avoidable forever. Especially around telepaths, they are bound to get curious. Of course he decided I was interesting and he was going to be my friend."**_


End file.
